Gillian Moore

The first 2012 edi­tion of the T&T Film Nights se­ries high­light­ed an im­por­tant chap­ter in na­tion­al his­to­ry with the screen­ing of '70: Re­mem­ber­ing a Rev­o­lu­tion. The free com­mu­ni­ty screen­ing, pre­sent­ed by the Trinidad & To­ba­go Film Fes­ti­val, in as­so­ci­a­tion with Reel Tri­ni and spon­sored by the Trinidad & To­ba­go Film Com­pa­ny, was held at Trevor's Edge in St Au­gus­tine, where more than a hun­dred film fans turned out to see the crit­i­cal­ly ac­claimed doc­u­men­tary, which won the ju­ry prize for best lo­cal fea­ture film at last year's fes­ti­val. The di­verse au­di­ence, made up of T&T res­i­dents and for­eign vis­i­tors, of all eth­nic­i­ties and ages, some would have lived through the events of the movie and oth­ers were hear­ing of them for the first time.

The film fea­tures in­ter­views with some of the stu­dent lead­ers of the 1970s "Black Pow­er" rev­o­lu­tion, busi­ness own­ers, cul­tur­al prac­ti­tion­ers and ob­servers, ex-mil­i­tary men, jour­nal­ists and politi­cians, showed vary­ing per­spec­tives and telling the sto­ry from dif­fer­ent sides. In­ter­vie­wees in­clud­ed Bro Valenti­no, Lenny Grant, for­mer Jay C's queen Bren­da Far­fan, Makan­dal Daa­ga, Khafra Kam­bon, Mairoon Ali, Raoul Pan­tin, Richard Kelshall and Clive Nunez. Pe­ri­od footage, news clip­pings, mu­sic and pho­tographs help bring the sto­ry to life. The movie, di­rect­ed by Alex de Ver­teuil and Eliz­a­beth Topp, held the au­di­ence's at­ten­tion as it told the lay­ered sto­ry of an emo­tion­al time which trans­formed T&T so­ci­ety but which is of­ten over-sim­pli­fied or even for­got­ten.